EDITORIAL: Regional services ease property tax burden

Opinion Staff

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, February 3, 2013

The particular character of each of our towns and cities is what makes this region so delightful. From the hustle-bustle of New Haven to the serene coasts to the bucolic, rural towns all across the state, diversity is what makes Connecticut so delightful.

But when it comes to sharing services, a lot more can be done. Whether it's public works or school bus contracts or purchasing commodities such as oil and road salt, municipalities can save money by doing more things together.

Why talk about this now? The state, facing a $2.2 billion budget deficit over the next two years, is likely to cut state grants to cities and towns, which means they must either cut services or raise property taxes.

House Speaker Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, recently spoke out about the need to increase cooperation between towns. He advocated such things as regional school calendars that would enable shared bus contracts.

There are some efforts being made. Some towns have combined their animal shelters, or shared police for DUI checks and investigations.

The South Central Regional Council of Governments, which includes 15 towns from Milford to Madison to Meriden, is about to spend a $54,000 state grant to do a shared-service study, according to COG Executive Director Carl Amento.

Other regional planning agencies have made bigger strides. The Northeast Connecticut COG, which represents 12 small towns that are much more homogeneous than those here, has a regional 911 call center and is creating a hazard-mitigation plan. Eleven of the region's towns share property revaluations.

The Capitol Region COG also has made some strides, with a web-based geographic information system, something the south central COG is also about to embark on with a $600,000 state grant. The CRCOG also shares law-enforcement data, training and purchasing.

The New Haven-area COG expects to save its member towns and cities more than $4.2 million in total. It has focused mostly on transportation and land use, Amento said, and gets little money from the state. Yet it has done projects such as expanding the Real Options, Overcoming Foreclosure program beyond New Haven to all its members and hazard-mitigation plans involving multiple towns and cities.

There can be sticky issues. Amento points out that combining 911 dispatch centers brings up issues of how to combine equipment, staffing and how to deal with unions. Start-up costs can be daunting in a slow economy. Also, the south central planning agency is very diverse, and members such as New Haven and Bethany having different needs.

There are legitimate hurdles. But unless we are ready to see our local property taxes go ever higher, our cities and towns are going to have to get a lot more creative about sharing services in order to save money and reduce the tax burden.